The 3.rd Theological virtue: Charity

Like the other two theological virtues; 

Faith and Hope, 

Charity comes from God.

Charity is not something that we can 

manufacture on our

own, it is God that gives it, 

and concretely that takes 

place at Baptism. 

It is pure supernatural grace. 

Baptism makes us children of God. 

In Baptism God communicates, 

even to infants, 

the entire supernatural organism: 

Faith, Hope and Charity.

For infants it is at an embryonic 

stage, 

obviously the infant 

can not perform acts of charity, 

but the grace is implanted and 

with the help of all the 

other Sacrements, especially 

Holy Communion 

and the Sacrement of Confession, 

it will increase as the child matures.

The grace of charity comes always 

from The Principle;

God The Father. 

It is a habitual disposition which is 

in the essence of the soul and which 

changes a being, the very identity 

of the soul, by mysteriously participating 

with God's nature. 

It is the divine operative habitus, rooted 

in the willpower, within us.

We are told to love God, but it can be difficult 

to love God, since we cannot see Him, it would 

be humanly impossible if it wasn't for God Himself 

giving us the capacity to love Him.

"And hope does not put us to shame, because God's 

love has been poured out into our hearts through the 

Holy Spirit , who has been given to us"

Romans 5:5

Charity has the characteristics of a friendship, 

a real honest, genuine friendship; pure kindness 

and goodwill towards the other, without even as 

much as a hint of personal profit for

oneself. 

There is nothing to be "gained" by it. Just wanting 

the good for the other.

The word Charity comes from the Greek word 

agape, or the Latin caritas.

This is a sublime friendship with God, in the 

goodness of God Himself, there is nothing at 

stake in it for us, so it is the opposite of 

concupiscence, which is a desire for something 

which we deem good, something we can benefit 

from, which pulls us towards it.

But Charity is totally free, there is no hidden 

agenda, it's only object is the love of God.

It is a mystery; the infinite love of God 

Himself, in the disposition of the heart, 

it is life in God.

Charity is God, and God is 3: 

The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.

Man has 3 types of loves, which he is torn

between.

1.

The emotive love: that which our senses pulls 

us towards. People, activities, food, etc, 

they are man's passions.

2. 

The spiritual love: what we consider to be for 

the universal good: justice, truth, beauty, peace 

etc, or it might be lying and dishonesty, which 

are nevertheless spiritual in caracter, as they 

are rooted in the willpower. 

The common denominator of these two types 

of love is that there is something to get out of 

it, advantages, a personal interst. 

It is the object that is good, or that we see as 

good, (it might not necessarily be the case), 

but the perceived goodness of the object is 

what pulls us towards it.

We see something we like and we say: 

I love it, I want it.

When we see the thing diminishing in 

perceived goodness, the human natural 

love of it diminishes also.

But Charity is not like that, man being 

pulled towards something due to the real 

or perceived goodness or beneficial qualities 

of the thing,

charity is the goodness in man himself, 

free of charge.

This is obviously the only type of love that 

God has.

God is goodness itself, He created the goodness 

in us, it was He that put it there, but unfortunately 

we are not only good like the infinite goodness of 

God.

God is love itself, God loves Himself, 

but not in a selfish and egocentric way, 

because God is not alone, 

God is not one, but three.

There are three Persons in God.

We can participate in God's charity,

in the goodwill that we bear towards Him, 

and that He bears towards us.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, 

it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not 

dishonour others, 

it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not 

delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, 

always hopes, always perseveres."

Corinthians 13;4-8

God is Charity. Charity is God. 

God is not alone.

There are three divine Persons in God: 

The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. 

The infinite love between the three divine 

Persons which is constitutive of God, 

is Charity.

Charity is a friendship with God, it wants 

the good of the other, nothing for itself, it 

is the goodness of God Himself. 

God is the principle of charity, which

is God's life in us.

"We love because He first loved us. 

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother 

or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their 

brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot 

love God, whom they have not seen."

1 John 4 19-20

"God demonstrated His immense love for us by 

sending His only Son to die for us while we were 

still sinners."

Romans 5:8

Without charity it would be humanly impossible 

to  "love our ennemies". But with it, it is possible.

The love God pours out on us makes it possible 

for us to be less bad, and even to be good. 

Because God is still good to us when we are not 

good to Him, He blesses us even when we do wrong, 

He forgives us, and if God can treat us in this merciful

way, then we are capable of treating others the same 

way. 

Charity is the highest form of love, but it 

does not eliminate or abolish the sensible 

or the spirituel love, rather it builds on top 

of it.

Charity is not at the exclusion of the 

primary physical sensible love in the conjugal 

love of marriage, which God Himself instituted. 

Rather charity is added on to it, it raises it up 

to another level, it makes it bigger, it takes on 

another magnitude.

Like steering a wagon with three wheels instead 

of two.

In fact Saint Thomas Aquinas said that charity 

is greater when it has it's roots in natural, physical 

love, it can be more successful. 

Divine charity does not eliminate love of a human 

nature, it builds on it.

And there is an order in charity.

We ought to love those closest to us more than 

those who are far away, in an order of proximity. 

It is literally those are closest to us who should 

come first; in a married couple it is the spouse, 

then the children, then parents, siblings, and the 

larger family, 

neighbours and friends, and of course those that 

happen to be in our physical proximity that might 

need help, e.g.

like the good samaritan in Luke 10: 25-37

It is fine to pray for people far away, e.g. people

who suffer war or famine, but charity always 

"starts at home", meaning those closest to us.

Actually amongst the Apostles there was 3 pairs 

of brothers, Simon and Andrew, John and James, 

Simon and Jude, they loved each other more than 

they loved the other apostles, in the sense that 

they supported each other more.

With God's grace we have the capacity within us 

to love our neighbour the way that God loves us, 

freely, not seeking anything in return.

It is the grace that renders us capable to do this, 

without it we could not. 

Those who love God has received the love of 

God from God Himself. 

Freely given, so we can in turn give it freely 

to others. It is the same love.

That is why we can never say: 

I love God but I don't love my neighbour, 

or I love my neighbour but I don't love God.

Charity comes from inside of us, 

from the heart.

It is not the ones who says 

"my God, my God, I love you" with their 

mouth, it is the ones who has the love

of God in their heart.

We can not see God, but we can see charity, 

it can be measured and verified, in how we 

treats others, in kindness of words and actions.

Charity is a close friendship, well it is a lot more 

than that, but that is the closest word that describes 

it.

A real friendship is always reciprocal, otherwise it 

is not a friendship. It is not a one way street, where 

one is always running after the other, calling him a 

friend, whereas the friend has no interest in him.

A friendship is always mutual.

And it is the same with God; it is reciprocal.

Charity does not make distinctions between people;

it distributes itself indiscriminately, because it springs

up from within the heart.

If we only help people we like and withhold it 

from those we do not "like" due to ideology

or prejudices, then it is not charity at all.

Because God loves all of us equally, that is why

we must do the same. In that way the love 

becomes reciprocal; Christian love made perfect,

in Communion with God. 

To love God freely, not because there is something

to be gained from it.

Not " I love God because I want to go to Heaven",

(Heaven is God), rather I love God because 

God is good, and I love this goodness.

Neither for motives of personal protection e.g.

" I love God because if I follow His Word He will

keep me safe and preserve me from danger and 

bad things."

We should rather love the God of consolation, 

and not the consolation of God.

If we love God for other reasons and motives than 

the pure goodness of God, then it is not charity.

In this state no fear remains, the freedom is creative, 

it never despaires and it provokes goodness.

If we have never lost the three Theological virtues:

Faith, Hope and Charity, they will continually grow 

and increase, which means that they are stronger 

today than they have ever been before.

Having said that; they can be lost, and out of the 

three, 

charity is the easiest one to loose.

If we make a choice that implicates that we prefer 

something else over God, the charity in us diminishes,

and it can even disappear altogether.

In Heaven there is no Faith, we no longer 

believe, because we see.

In Heaven there is no Hope, because we 

have already arrived.

But Charity, the love of God, remains in

Heaven.

It is the link between Heaven and earth.

Charity is at the beginning, the principle

of the spiritual life, it is not on top of the 

other virtues, like an extra, but it is the very 

foundation of the others.

The other virtues are informed by charity.

" Though I command languages both human and angelic, 

if I speak without love, I am  no more than a booming gong

or a cymbal clashing.

And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all 

mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith 

necessary to move mountaints - if I am without love- 

I am nothing. 

Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess, 

and even give up my body to be burned - if I am without love, 

it will do me no good whatsoever. 

Love is always patient and kind, love is never jealous, love is 

not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks it's 

own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds it's joy in the 

truth.

It is always ready to make allowences, to trust, to hope and to 

endure whatever comes."

1 Corinthians 13, 1-7

God on earth is called Charity. 

 

God's attributes

 

God is the cause of all beings in the universe, 

God is a necessary Being, 

He can not not exist.

God is not only supremly intelligent, but infinitely

(without limit) intelligent.

He is the cause of all movement, 

but He Himself is without movement, 

He is motionless and unchanging.

He gives movement to all things, 

but is Himself immovable, 

He remains.

He is permanent stability in this world where

everything is in constant movement and change.

He is the end of all things, 

He is the objective and the 

explanation of all things.

But can we define God?

In the catechism for children God is described

as "an eternal spitit, infinitely perfect, creator and 

master of all things."

A spirit is a being, and 

everything that exists has "a being".

Saint Thomas Aquinas's definition:

God is the Being, not a being, 

He is this Being whose essence is to exist.

He is that which makes everything exist.

God's specificity is that His essence is His existence.

So what is the essence of something?

We have an immediate knowledge of the essence

of a thing; it is that which it is. 

The concept comes instantly to us when somebody 

mentions a specific thing; e.g. a house, a horse, a car, 

an elephant, we know straight away what it is;

we conceptualise things continuously.

Everything has two facets; what they are and 

the being; that which makes them exist.

God is necessary, 

He can not not exist, in contrast 

to any of us, we are not "necessary". 

For example the sibling that our parents did not have

has the same essence as us; a human being. 

For us, our essence and our existence are two 

different things, 

in contrast to God's essence and existence, 

which is the one and same thing.

God's essence and existence is the same reality.

God is existence itself, and there are no concepts 

of existence. 

Existence is to be.

God appears mysterious to us because we can not

have a clear concept of His essence, as His essence

is existence itself.

God's essence is to exist, and there is no intellectual 

concept for existing like there is for everything else.

The word essence comes from the Latin word 

essentia, which means being or existence, and

is itself in turn derived from the Latin esse, 

which means to be.

Essence is what is the core, what is underneath 

appearances and individual differences.

God has 3 realities; 

the Essence, the Substance and the Nature 

(His actions), they  

are all equal to each other.

All of us have the distinction of being what we are 

and what has made us come into being.

A man is not fundamentally "necessary", he might 

exist or he might not exist, 

whether he exists or whether he 

does not exist, he has the same essence.

A man is defined as an individual substance 

of a rational nature, composed of matter and soul.

A rational animal.

God is the source of everything, 

He has a substance,

He is the substance, through His essence 

He sustains everything.

The nature of God is His Divinity. 

God is simple;

what He is and what he does is one and the same thing.

Unlike us; what we are and what we do are 2 different

things.

God is at the core, in the depth, of all things.

He is the essence of all things.

Then there is God's definition of Himself, on Mount Sinai,

when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave 

him the enormous task of leading the Israelites out of slavery

from Egypt. When Moses asked him who he was, what was his 

name, God answered: "I am the One who is" 

"I am who I am" 

(Yahweh: I am. I am what I am. The others are from me.

I am of me.)

God is the pure state of existence itself.

He is the gushing fountain of Being, including Himself.

What is it that makes God God? It is God.

God's attributes derives from His essence, in an order.

God's 1.st attribute: Omnipotence, All Powerfull.

God continually communicates His Being to all things,

in this very moment, the reason that i am here, is because

God communicates His Being to me, 

His Being which is His.

If this was not the case, I would simply cease to exist,

I would disappear.

Same for everything that exists; there is nothing 

that is not in His Power.

Whether something exists already or does not exist, 

makes no difference to God, 

it is just as easy for Him to create new things.

Man can create things in the sense of working on a

material to change it's shape, to transform it, but it is 

only God that can create from nothing, Ex nihilo.

God is the one who creates.

Can He do everything? Yes.

Can He make a rectangular circle?

No, because that is opposed to the definition of a circle.

But that is not at all a limitation of God's power, it is 

because it is absurd and against His own essence, 

His own wisdom or His own Power, it is because

it contradicts His own Being.

Nothing is impossible to God. 

Our world is located in time, but God is outside time,

meaning He is the absence of time.

Infinity is the absence of time: time does not exist.

Time is a psychological creation, it only exists in our 

heads.

We often say when being absorbed by something

that is really interesting to us, that "time flew", 

because our spirit it totally fixed on it,

and in the opposite case, we say that "time was 

slow or long" if we are bored.

The clock simply signals movement: the measure of 

movement from before to after. 

I reality time does not exist.

God's spirit is completly fixed on his being.

When we die movement stops, our spirit stops, 

it will be fixed, in God, or as the case might be;

not in God.

Time does not exist in God; 

the middle ages, the stone age,

the creation of the world, the end of the world,

this present moment, 

for God they are all the present moment.

Our birth and our death is to God one view.

He sees everything simultanously, He does not

ask us where we were, or where we are going to be,

He asks us to be in His Presence.

God's 2.nd attribute: Omnipresence

God is everywhere, in everything, all the time. 

It is He who creates the being of everything, 

He has an efficiency, an action, on all things.

Without this action, the thing would not exist,

could not exist, without His action, His Presence,

His Substance.

It is therefore impossible and completely wrong 

to believe that God is far from us, that He has 

abandonned us, that He does not care about us.

It is IN God that we have being, life and movement.

For God being and action is the same thing.

We are living the life of God.

How can anybody not think about God?

We receive permanently God's being, we can not 

possibly be estranged from God.

It is the world that is in God,

not God who is in the world.

It is always the smallest being who is contained 

in the bigger one.

"For the spirit of the Lord filled the whole world, 

and that which containeth all things hath knowledge 

of the voice"

Wisdom 1:7

His spirit contains all things, that is why He has the last 

word on all things. He is just in all things.

The world is in God like the content is in the container,

not the other way around. 

God's 3.rd attribute: Simplicity

God is simple and uncomplicated. 

He is straight forward.

Not like us, who always complicate things.

In God there is no distinction between matter

and form, no distinction between essence and 

existence, no distinction between soul and body, 

no distinction between being and action.

God is extremly simple, this can be difficult for us 

to perceive. 

It is the reason why the closer a person comes to God,

the more clear and simple he will be.

Not simple in the sense of being stupid or

simplistic or simple-minded, which would be a lack

of intelligence, but a person who approach himself

to God; otherwise meaning he sanctifies himself, he 

becomes a better person, more simple, more like God.

Some believe that in order to be intelligent 

we have to complicate everything, as some kind of 

proof of intelligence. No, 

God is infinitely intelligent and totally simple.

God's 4th attribute: Eternal, Infinite

God is infinite because He is simple.

What is it that limits a being?

It is his essence, the fact that we are one thing 

we are not the other things.

It is not the existence that limits a being, it is his 

essence. 

Because a dog is a dog, he is not a cat or an elephant. 

If I am this thing well defined, it means that I can not 

be other things. 

I am confined and limited to the form determined by 

my particular essence.

This is not the case with God. God is not this or that, 

His essence is to be.

He is not determined by a form, that is why he has no 

limits, He is unlimited.

There is no limit in Him whose essence is to exist.

He is therefore infinite.

That means that all His aforementioned attributes

are without limits. His Power is without limit.

His intelligence is without limit. 

God's 5th attribute: Providence

The word providence comes from the latin

word providere, pro: ahead, videre: to see,

together it means to see beforehand.

God sees everything at the same time, He sees 

where we were, where we are, and where we 

are going, simultanously. 

God is the efficient cause of everything, He is 

behind man, He is in man, and He is at the end 

of man.

He gives the being to man, He is in eternity,

He is in the ultimate cause of man, 

He is all powerful.

He leads every human being, since humans have 

their autonomy from God, He brings man from 

his cause who is God, to his ultimate cause, 

who is God.

Man is completly in God's hand from the beginning

of his life to the end of his life. We cannot do a single

thing without God, 

We are directed by an infinite powerful, an infinite

good God, who is infinite farseeing, from the beginning 

to the very end of our lives.

We are asked to recognise this fact and to live in His 

Presence. 

He is at the origin of what we are, and He leads us 

back to Him.

God's 6th attribute: Love

God is Love, Infinite Love.

God is Love because He is good.

He extends His love to us because He is 

goodness itself, contrary to human love 

which only goes towards something that 

they themselves find good.

(e.g. I love ice cream, I go and get one, 

because I love it)

God's love is called Charity, because real love, 

is to give oneself.

God is Love, because He is not alone, 

He is three.